DSITIA Department Of Science, Information And Technology, Innovation And Arts - Overview

Discuss about the Condition Assessment Framework System.

The DSITIA (department of science, information and technology, innovation and arts) is a department operated under the national government and derives funding by providing infrastructure related to information, communication and technology as well as services that involve information brokerage (Vohs, & Baumeister, 2016). The firm also engages in procurement, workforce advisory, payroll processing, financial processing, mail support and offering technology solutions related to human and financial resource management. The company has employed approximately more than 2,570 employees and services get administered from the head office located in Brisbane, Queensland (Parliament.qld.gov.au.2018). The DSITIA works towards the development and coordination of ICT and science policy across the government of Queensland. This department operates to offer an innovation approach that is whole-of-state enabling knowledge economy to support and invest in research as well as innovation that meets the future challenges of the state.

The department is committed to build strong relationships with major stakeholders in ICT and innovation industry while improving delivery of government service by using technology in communications and information services and others that are shared. It helps the businesses in Queensland as well as consumers to benefit from emerging and current digital services, endeavors and technologies to come up with a strong and diverse cultural and arts sector in the country while managing the intellectual property assets and policy of the state (Annualreport.dsiti.qld.gov.au. 2017).    

The report applies the nine models of business by Osterwalder & Pigneur that they designed in 2010 to explain the department’s strategies of doing business.

These include the various consumers and business all over Queensland, who depend on the studies and information provided by the department. These include agencies that are also in need of information from the government.

The department works hand in hand with other agencies of research to provide information to the people of Queensland with much support coming from the government. These include the chief information officer in the Queensland government and the chief scientist of Queensland (Eyre, Kelly, Neldner, Wilson, Ferguson, Laidlaw, & Franks, 2015).

1. The department works towards the protection of the state’s intellectual policy and assets
2. To provide businesses and consumers with useful technology innovation and information to apply in their operations
3. To grow the knowledge economy in Queensland

• Coordinating and developing policies in ICT and science across the country
• Invest and support research development towards solutions of challenges in the country
• Helping the government in managing its intellectual policy and assets
• Provide businesses and consumers with information related to technology and innovation through research (Lockington, Albert, Fisher, Gibbes, Maxwell, & Grinham, 2017)

The department operates through various channels of providing information that relies mostly on the social media to keep it working. These channels include the advance Queensland, the Queensland science, the digital Queensland, Queensland state archives and open data Queensland websites (Annualreport.dsiti.qld.gov.au. 2017). All the websites form the departmental network through Facebook, twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and others.

Services Offered

The department operations are fully supported by the state government of Queensland and the department does not have to produce items for sell to earn income. The following table provides an example of one of its budget.

The DSITIA works by relying entirely on the resources supplied by the government in the country (Eyre, Kelly, Neldner, Wilson, Ferguson, Laidlaw, & Franks, 2015). The funding and budget allocations every year come from the government funding and this aspect leaves the department with enough resources to run its operations.

DSITIA company has various relations that include various stakeholders from technological and ICT companies. The company partners with these stakeholders to provide digital information to consumers and business (Korbel, Chariton, Stephenson, Greenfield, & Hose, 2017).

The DSITIA supports scientific research for innovation by investing in major projects through the collaboration with both national and international partners. The department also works in fellowships towards the attraction of high quality research people to Queensland.  The company has also been relating well with various stakeholders from the different companies related to technology and information innovation (Annualreport.dsiti.qld.gov.au. 2017).  The network of stakeholders from different technology firms helps it manage its research operations. Besides the company being funded by the government, it also gets revenue through the sale of information and research services to clients. The company makes money by providing information to agencies that rely on information for development and growth (Reynolds, Creemers, Nesselrodt, Shaffer, Stringfield, & Teddlie, 2014). From this the department has made itself a growth in cost structure and different revenue streams. It has also developed partners in the form of other technology and innovation firms.

The success of the DSITIA comes from different factors of success that help in making the company move forward and remain strong. These include factors such as state funding and support. All the resources and budget comes from the state and this enables the company to be well funded to run all its operations smoothly without the lack of operational capital. The other factor includes the network that the department has established for itself through online websites and social media platforms (Mantyka?Pringle, Martin, Moffatt, Linke, & Rhodes, 2014).  These include the advance Queensland, the Queensland science, the digital Queensland, Queensland state archives and open data Queensland websites. They enable the company to disseminate information and communicate with the relevant stakeholders within short periods of time. The network includes the customers and the various businesses that rely entirely on the department’s information and research. The company also gets collaboration from other sub-departments under it that also serve to gather information from their areas of operation (Eyre, Kelly, Neldner, Wilson, Ferguson, Laidlaw, & Franks, 2015). This means that the department can gather technological information from these sectors. There are also shared services that help the department share responsibilities meant to acquire same results. The DSITIA enjoys the interaction with stakeholders from other digital and technology companies who also give information concerning science and technological developments from their side. Thus, collecting and sharing information by the DSITIA Company becomes easy.

Working with Stakeholders and Partners

There are various risks related to the operations of the DSITIA which threaten its survival in the market. These include risks such as those related to legacy systems which are not covered by the mainstream support of vendors. The other downside risk involved includes technological risks that come with procurement and maintenance of company systems of operation (Morshed, Dutta, & Aryal, 2013. These include such problems as consistent maintaining and upgrading of a wide range of software and system versions that help manage human resource, financial and payroll systems of management. In most cases, these risks are associated with the Queensland shared services. The other risks may come in the form of financial risks such as inflation that affect interest rates on the loans the company may give or take related to its operations (Boud, & Feletti, 2013).

The DSITIA Company has been using a mix of business models to run its operations including the value for money business model, cost efficiencies and service delivery models.

The company can improve on its operations and cut on cost of operation to continue playing its role in giving information related to science and technology to the people of Queensland.

  This can be done through sharing of responsibilities to the other sub-sectors under its control. The move would pass much of responsibilities related to research to other department by contracting them so that cost of doing studies is passed over to them (Annualreport.dsiti.qld.gov.au. 2017).

The department would cut costs but have the same services offered. The company would also increase the level of networking that would leave it with many people who can help it collect data on specific areas without the need to go looking for new sources (Reynolds, Creemers, Nesselrodt, Shaffer, Stringfield, & Teddlie, 2014). These include the many stakeholders from such companies related to technology and innovation as those in the ICT sector.

Conclusion

The DSITIA has been successfully carrying out the responsibilities related to studies on behalf of the government and ensuring that the information obtained is disseminated to different consumers and business interested in such information. Much of this content involves that related to science and technology. The company has played the role of taking care of the government policies and intellectual property assets. It has also applied value for money and efficient service delivery models to do research towards getting solutions to the various future challenges of the state. Much of the funding comes from the state and this enables the company to support enough of its operations most of which involve research.

The following are the recommendations that the company needs to look into so that it can have its operations improved significantly. These include;

• The DSITIA needs to engage the services of the shared services departments to have it spread some of the downside risks associated with operations such as inflation and technological risks, by sharing key responsibilities
• It should develop a much more integrated network with key stakeholders from technology, digital and innovation companies so that it gets some of this information first hand instead of conducting expensive studies which reduces the risks related risks such as legal systems and maintenance of technological equipment.
• It would delegate some of the research responsibilities to the sub-departments which fall under the ministry of science and technology as it is to cut relevant costs as they help in acquiring new software and their maintenance and related risks.

References

Annualreport.dsiti.qld.gov.au. (2017). 2016—17 DSITI Annual Report | DSITI | Queensland Government. [online] Available at: https://annualreport.dsiti.qld.gov.au/

Boud, D., & Feletti, G. (2013). The challenge of problem-based learning. Routledge.

Eyre, T. J., Kelly, A. L., Neldner, V. J., Wilson, B. A., Ferguson, D. J., Laidlaw, M. J., & Franks, A. J. (2015). BioCondition: A Condition Assessment Framework for Terrestrial Biodiversity in Queensland. Assessment Manual. Version 2.2. Queensland Herbarium, Department of Science. Information Technology, Innovation and Arts, Brisbane.

Eyre, T. J., Kelly, A. L., Neldner, V. J., Wilson, B. A., Ferguson, D. J., Laidlaw, M. J., & Franks, A. J. (2015). BioCondition: A Condition Assessment Framework for Terrestrial Biodiversity in Queensland. Assessment Manual. Version 2.2. Queensland Herbarium, Department of Science. Information Technology, Innovation and Arts, Brisbane.

Korbel, K., Chariton, A., Stephenson, S., Greenfield, P., & Hose, G. C. (2017). Wells provide a distorted view of life in the aquifer: implications for sampling, monitoring and assessment of groundwater ecosystems. Scientific reports, 7, 40702.

Lockington, J. R., Albert, S., Fisher, P. L., Gibbes, B. R., Maxwell, P. S., & Grinham, A. R. (2017). Dramatic increase in mud distribution across a large sub-tropical embayment, Moreton Bay, Australia. Marine pollution bulletin, 116(1-2), 491-497.

Mantyka?Pringle, C. S., Martin, T. G., Moffatt, D. B., Linke, S., & Rhodes, J. R. (2014). Understanding and predicting the combined effects of climate change and land?use change on freshwater macroinvertebrates and fish. Journal of Applied Ecology, 51(3), 572-581.

Morshed, A., Dutta, R., & Aryal, J. (2013, April). Recommending environmental knowledge as linked open data cloud using semantic machine learning. In Data Engineering Workshops (ICDEW), 2013 IEEE 29th International Conference on (pp. 27-28). IEEE.

Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y., Oliveira, M. A. Y., & Ferreira, J. J. P. (2011). Business Model Generation: A handbook for visionaries, game changers and challengers. African journal of business management, 5(7), 22-30.

Parliament.qld.gov.au.(2018).[online].Available at: https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/tableOffice/TabledPapers/2013/5413T3558.pdf

Reynolds, D., Creemers, B., Nesselrodt, P. S., Shaffer, E. C., Stringfield, S., & Teddlie, C. (Eds.). (2014). Advances in school effectiveness research and practice. Elsevier.

Vohs, K. D., & Baumeister, R. F. (Eds.). (2016). Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications. Guilford Publications.